[Zope] Re: [ZCommerce] RE: Philip leaves Arsdigita (was: Re: [Zope]kerberos ? + LDAP + ecommerce + ZEO replication etc)

[Walter Ludwick]

Hey, Paul:  Nice to hear from you on this matter - but no surprise, as i've
always thought of you as a stand-up guy (even if given to the occasional
"mealy-mouthed" remark that just goes with the job, alas :-)  Comments
in-line below:

on 4/3/01 4:40 PM, Paul Everitt at paul@digicool.com wrote:

> 
> 
> Walter Ludwick wrote:
...
>> I've just concluded a project (a CMS for a group of federated websites with
>> a kinda half-assed "eCommerce" component) in Zope, simply because ACS was
>> too expensive for us at this point, and we needed a quick/ cheap win.  The
> 
> Was there anything about Zope (especially as a CMS), beyond quick/cheap,
> that was a win?

If i was less than clear (looks like i was), let me hasten to add: i've got
a bunch of other reasons for liking Zope (most of which i told you about in
that telephone coversation we had last summer, while i was still seeking
reasons to pick Zope over ACS.  Gary Graham queued it up for us, as you may
recall).  Not being a programmer myself, i'll confine myself to the business
issues:  

-> Licensing terms seemed more favorable (TCL was already the subject of
some debate, which grew rather significant after some remarks by RMS and the
FSF faithful.  The tie to AOL's web-server was questionable.  And as for
Oracle... well, that's a whale of a ship, but i hate to be lashed to it's
wheel [or, rather, down in the bowels of steerage, as it were] without a
tender or lifeboat).

-> As i said on our call (a point you readily acknowledged), Zope is not a
finished CMS, but rather a CMS erector-set with a very advanced architecture
and lots of pre-assembled parts.  In our case, workflow needs were not all
that sophisticated (else it would have been a non-starter, given the state
of the PTK at that time last year), and our RDBMS needs were easily
satisfied by a single server running Postgres.  For us, the separation of
content, presentation and business logic that Zope already provided was just
the architecture we needed;  for our immediate purposes, the ACS data model
was really overkill, and it would be quite beyond the means of our team to
learn it quickly, if ever (internal maintainability was a requirement).  As
to this business of "scaling to enterprise," i took your word for it
(stand-up guy that you are :-) that we could port the database over to
Oracle if we should ever need to, and distribute processing across servers
if it came to that using ZEOS.

->  Last but not least, i just felt a real affinity for the "Zope people"
that i never quite felt in the ARS Digita world.  People whose opinions i
respect generally speak most highly of Zope (even Phillip Greenspun, in his
inimitable gruff way, gave it pretty high praise).  The fact that you
personally spent over an hour with me on the phone, Paul, and didn't BS me
once with any false promises of "vaporware," was much appreciated.  |/|/


>> project has proven successful, and i believe we did indeed chose wisely;
>> nonetheless, as we look at the major challenges to be addressed in the next
>> phase of development (i.e. PERSONALIZATION), i don't see anything "on the
> 
> Can you explain personalization?  The CMF (formerly PTK) does some of
> personalization, but I wonder what parts it doesn't address of
> "personalization" as you see it.

Big question, Paul.  I could say a lot about this, but then i'd be quickly
out of my depth in technical discussion.  Let's just put it this way:
Amazon has taught us all a lot about how eCommerce sites can adapt
dynamically to user preferences and choices in such a way as to sell more
stuff WHILE building stronger customer relationships -- and ARS Digita has
taken great pains to build a lot of the business logic behind such magic
into their systems.  eCommerce isn't just about a shopping cart that
remembers your choices for the duration of a single session, but more about
maximizing Lifetime Customer Value.  ARS Digita has turnkey applications/
modules for managing this, i gather, the likes of which i have never heard
of in the Zope world.  But maybe i am missing somthing i should know about
-- so, like Ross Perot, i'm all ears :-)  |/|/

 
>> shelf" in the Zope world that comes close to addressing the needs, and the
>> ACS looks increasingly attractive.
>> 
>> But i'm missing a lot of the background, and having a bit of trouble
>> following this thread, so maybe you can tell me:  is it possible that we
>> could port the ACS functionality into our Zope-based CMS as a "plug-in," and
>> could this be the sort of business rationale that Digital Creations needs to
>> hear in order to justify the expensive of a person-week to do the sort of
>> analysis that you seem to be requesting?
> 
> There are a number of alternatives.  As you described, we could view ACS
> as a requirements document and port it.  We could try to find a way to
> make Zope a frontend for ACS' e-commerce, or vice versa.
> 
> I haven't heard much specifics about how this might work, so I can't
> comment on it.


Obviously i haven't got a clue about the how-to's.  Maybe some of the Zope/
ACS geeks out there do, and can advise.  FWIW, i am inclined to believe that
a move like this, if it's to be successful, is not driven by programmers,
but rather from the perspective of meeting real business needs.  I've got
plenty of those to talk about, and there's plenty more where i'm coming
from.  But without some analyst(s) at the table -- saavy about products on
both Zope and ACS sides and their feature-sets -- it'll be like the sound of
one hand clapping.  I for one am interested enough in this topic to explore
it further, but not if Digital Creations isn't.  |/|/

 
>> It certainly seems to me that ACS is eating Zope's lunch in the market for
>> "serious" eCommerce solutions - and now that the WorldBank is investing so
> 
> That's probably true.  eCommerce, as is obvious, hasn't been the place
> we've chosen to compete.  But it's hard to be competitive in other areas
> without some ecommerce story.

Quite so.  |/|/

 
>> much in the ACS through this "Gateway" project of theirs, with no
>> corresponding investments in the Zope world, the trend can only worsen.  So
>> it seems to this particular buyer in the market (small potatoes as i am)
>> that incorporating ACS functionality into Zope, instead of just waiting for
>> someone to happen along and fund its development from scratch, is the
> 
> Understand, of course, that this applies to *lots* of things.  And
> saying that DC has to eat it out of hide is OK, but there's a limit to
> how much we can apply that strategy to.

Fair enough.  You obviously can't commit resources without seeing tangible
proofs of interest in the marketplace.  |/|/

 
>> smarter way -- maybe even the only way -- to make it happen.  Without
>> industrial-strength eCommerce and all that personalization stuff that goes
>> along with it and is so important to everyone these days, i'm afraid that
>> Digital Creations may be relegating Zope to the prospect of diminishing
>> returns in a market that will just have to expand without significant
>> Zope/DC participation.  If this is what you've been trying to tell Chris
>> McD, then i'm afraid i have to agree.
> 
> You're certainly right that, if Zope wants to be competitive in
> eCommerce, then it needs an eCommerce story.  The story is a bit murkier
> for competing in other areas, but it's likely that Zope should have at
> least *some* production-class story for eCommerce.
> 
> For personalization, depends on you definition.  We might alread have
> some of it.


Whaddya got?  I've still got my ears on... |/|/


> But concerning the remedy...is it *truly* the case that DC has to own
> this effort?  After all, many of you know more about eCommerce than us.
> We definately should participate, though.
> 
> --Paul

You certainly shouldn't be going it alone, Paul.  Without the interest of
both the developer community AND business people in search of solutions,
this effort would likely not succeed.  But, presuming for a moment that the
subscribers to this list could muster enough developers and business
solution-buyers to warrant it, might you be willing to dedicate project
management and technical expertise enough to do a proper opportunity
analysis?

IMO, unless DC is serious enough about this issue to make at least that sort
of commitment, this worthy project is probably a non-starter.


|/|/alt
Walter Ludwick
wludwick@mail.walmar.com